Search This Blog

The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds

The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds is a novel set in his Revelations Space universe. It narrates the story of Field Prefect Dreyfus and his two deputies as they begin investigating the death of over nine hundred people and end up fighting a system-wide emergency.

I didn't like this book as much as Reynolds's earlier books. It begins alright, and goes on well till about the middle. But somewhere around page 200 of this 400 page work, it begins to falter. One, it stops sounding like a Reynolds novel. I associate his work with high-concept space opera – with the story happening mostly in space dealing with largely alien characters. However, 'The Prefect' gradually turns into a security-agency drama with one character sitting ducks and not doing much for several hundred pages and the other one is too busy playing the only good cop in the organization. It really gets irritating after a while. And it drags. I think the book needs to cut down on at least a fifty pages.